Turning water into Wine

At Casella Wines, we aim to be a key player in the development of a Carbon Footprint tool for the Australian wine Industry. Read on to find out what we are doing to help our much-loved environment.

As of November 2007, 100% of waste water from the Casella winery is being recycled at our state-of-the-art Mt Bingar Reclamation Facility. We're proud to have the largest waste-water treatment scheme of its type in Australia!

The facility has the capacity to recycle 400 million litres of water per annum - the equivalent of 160 Olympic swimming pools!

The operation is chemical-free and environmentally friendly - in very basic terms, we are relying on ‘bugs' to help us eat up all the pollutants in the water!

About 69% of this water will be used for general purposes within the winery. Casella also plans to use some of the water by growing crops such as Lucerne, which will increase the area's biodiversity. The availability of this secure recycled water source eases the winery's reliance on channel water from the Murrumbidgee River.

We are winners! We received a Highly Commended in the Business Awards Category for the Mt Bingar facility in the 2008 NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change Awards.

Identifying how much energy we use. We recently conducted an energy audit for the winery where major energy users were identified. Several energy savings opportunities were identified with the estimated CO2 savings coming to 9,087 tonnes. The opportunities were from various areas, including refrigeration, compressed air, steam systems and lighting. Work has already commenced on developing plans to determine exactly how we are going to achieve this reduction, so watch this space! 

Other Casella environmental facts:

Casella Wines has planted thousands of indigenous seedling species around the Mt Bingar water-recycling facility, all sourced from the local Binya State Forest.

All company vineyards are now drip-irrigated and computer-controlled.  This allows minimal loss due to evaporation compared to the original gravity flood system, as water is directed specifically to the plant root zone.

We recycle all waste cardboard, plastic and glass and are converting all vehicles to LPG.